Category Archives: Africa

Somali security agents arrest journalist in night-time raid

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Abduqadir Mohamed Nur’s reported abduction from home and detention is latest attack on press freedom for critical writing on regime, media union says

A Somali journalist was abducted from his home by intelligence agents early on Friday, according to press freedom campaigners.

The journalists’ union Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) said the detention of Abduqadir Mohamed Nur was a “brazen attack” on the reporter and his news outlet, Risaala Media Corporation, for critical reporting of state security forces.

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‘My dream has been shattered,’ says Nigerian nurse accused of cheating after arriving in UK

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Nurse says she has lost ‘my name, my integrity’ after being accused of using proxy to sit tests to work in Britain

When I was a little girl in my village in Nigeria going to school was something I could not even dream of because we did not have money. Then my mother sold everything we owned to pay for me to go to school.

I knew this was my only ticket to make something worthwhile out of my life and my family’s life.

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Kenyan political drama as deputy president impeached while in hospital

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Senators upheld five of 11 charges in unprecedented vote while Rigathi Gachagua was treated for chest pains

Kenya’s senate impeached the deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua, while he was in hospital on a day of high political drama in Nairobi.

Senators upheld five out of 11 charges against Gachagua in a vote late on Thursday, making him the first deputy president in the country to be ejected from office through impeachment.

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Netherlands mulls sending rejected African asylum seekers to Uganda

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Critics say plan mooted by coalition government led by Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party is ‘totally unfeasible’

The Dutch coalition government, headed by Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party (PVV), is considering sending Africans whose asylum requests are rejected to Uganda, in plans that opposition politicians have said are “totally unfeasible”.

During a visit this week to the East African country, the Dutch minister for trade and development, Reinette Klever, said the cabinet was exploring the ideaand that Uganda was “not averse” to it, the Dutch public broadcaster Nos reported on Wednesday.

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Negative stereotypes in international media cost Africa £3.2bn a year – report

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Focus on conflict, corruption and poverty heightens perception of risk, raising interest on sovereign debt, authors say

Africa loses up to £3.2bn yearly in inflated interest payments on sovereign debt due to persistent negative stereotypes that dominate international media coverage of the continent, according to a new report.

Research by consultants Africa Practice and the advocacy non-profit Africa No Filter suggests that media portrayals, especially during elections when global coverage is heightened, focus disproportionately on conflict, corruption, poverty, disease and poor leadership, widening disparities between perceived and actual risks of investing in the continent, and creating a monolithic view of Africa.

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More EU leaders expected to back calls for offshore asylum centres

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Migration to dominate summit as four people including two toddlers die after falling from crowded speedboat off Kos

A growing number of European leaders are expected to back calls for offshore immigration centres, as the EU casts around for tougher measures to stop asylum seekers reaching the bloc.

EU officials were preparing for intensive talks on migration at a leaders’ summit on Thursday, as it emerged that four people, including two toddlers, had died after falling overboard from an overcrowded speedboat off the Greek island of Kos.

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Explosion kills scores of Nigerians collecting fuel from crashed tanker

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People were collecting fuel from tanker that had crashed when it blew up, according to local police

More than 140 people have died in an explosion while rushing to scoop up fuel from a crashed tanker in north-west Nigeria, in one of the country’s worst such incidents in recent times.

Local authorities said the vehicle crashed late on Tuesday night after the driver lost control on the Kano-Hadejia expressway near the town of Majiya in Jigawa state. It then exploded while onlookers were scooping spilt fuel with cups and buckets.

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Grand Egyptian Museum to open main galleries for trial run to 4,000 visitors

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Date for official opening still not announced for $1bn-plus mega-project more than a decade in the making

Egypt’s vast and much-delayed antiquities museum will partly open its main galleries on Wednesday, including 12 halls that exhibit aspects of ancient Egypt.

The Grand Egyptian Museum, a mega-project near the famed Giza pyramids that has cost considerably more than $1bn (£765m) so far, will open its halls to 4,000 visitors as a trial run until the official opening date, which is yet to be announced, according to Al-Tayeb Abbas, assistant to the minister of antiquities.

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EU unable to retrieve €150m paid to Tunisia despite links to rights violations

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Concerns are growing that funds from the migration deal are connected to abuses by the repressive regime in Tunis

The EU will be unable to claw back any of the €150m (£125m) paid to Tunisia despite the money being increasingly linked to human rights violations, including allegations that sums went to security forces who raped migrant women.

The European Commission paid the amount to the Tunis government in a controversial migration and development deal, despite concerns that the north African state was increasingly authoritarian and its police largely operated with impunity.

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Cameroon bans discussing president’s health as absence fuels speculation

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Health of Paul Biya, 91, declared matter of national security and any debate prohibited after denial that he has died

Cameroonian authorities have banned discussions about the health of the president, Paul Biya, after the latest round of speculation about his prolonged failure to appear in public.

In a 9 October letter to regional governors, the interior minister, Paul Atanga Nji, said discussing the 91-year-old president’s health was a matter of national security and “any debate in the media about the president’s condition is therefore strictly prohibited”.

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Dramatic images show the first floods in the Sahara in half a century

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More than year’s worth of rain fell in two days in south-east Morocco, filling up lake that had been dry for decades

Dramatic pictures have emerged of the first floods in the Sahara in half a century.

Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-east Morocco and caused a deluge, officials of the country’s meteorology agency said in early October. In Tagounite, a village about 450km(280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.

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Mozambique ruling party likely to win elections despite dissatisfied youth

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Venâncio Mondlane is enthusing young voters in presidential elections but Frelimo’s Daniel Chapo still likely winner

Mozambicans go to the polls on Wednesday in elections that the ruling Frelimo party is expected to win easily, even as an outsider candidate is shaking up the presidential race and winning over young voters in a country where the median age is just 17.

Frelimo has ruled the southern African country since the end of Portuguese colonial rule in 1975. For the first time, it is fielding a presidential candidate born after independence, Daniel Chapo, a provincial governor who was relatively unknown until being picked in May as the candidate to succeed the outgoing president, Filipe Nyusi.

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Tunisia’s president wins landslide second term after cracking down on opponents

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Kais Saied secured 90.7% of the vote in election on a turnout of just 27.7%, after detaining rival Ayachi Zammel

Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, has secured a second five-year term with a landslide victory, although the election had one of the lowest turnouts in the north African country’s history.

The Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) declared on Monday evening that Saied had won 90.7% of the vote in Sunday’s election, on a turnout of 27.7%.

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Suddenly, all MPs know where the Chagos Islands are and what’s best for them | John Crace

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Many who last week couldn’t have got within 500 miles of Mauritius on a map now can’t bear it taking the archipelago

What a difference a week makes. Just last Wednesday, you could have put money on most MPs being totally clueless about the exact location of the Chagos Islands. Give them a map and many would have better luck being blindfolded.

Even a hint wouldn’t have made much difference. Are they east, west, south or north of Mauritius? To be in with a shout, you have to know where Mauritius is. And most MPs wouldn’t get within 500 miles. The Indian Ocean is bigger than you think. And don’t get them started on Diego Garcia. Surely he’s the younger brother of the titular character in the 1974 Sam Peckinpah film Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

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Lammy defends Chagos deal, saying it saves important UK-US military base

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Foreign secretary says status quo not sustainable as Tory MPs accuse Labour of giving away key asset

David Lammy has hailed the decision to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius as a deal to save a strategically important UK-US military base, after accusations from opposition MPs that a key asset was being given away.

The government announced last week that it was going to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, ending years of bitter dispute over Britain’s last African colony, but the military base on Diego Garcia will remain under UK control.

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Biden to visit Angola as global powers vie for African influence

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US and EU are supporting infrastructure projects in Angola, which has historically been closer to Russia and China

When Joe Biden travels to Angola on Sunday, it will be the first trip to an African country of his presidency and the first to the continent by a sitting US president since Barack Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia in 2015.

It is a marker of how Africa’s 54 countries are increasingly courted by global powers, drawn to the continent by geopolitical shifts and an abundance of minerals needed for electric cars and other battery-powered technologies.

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Democracy campaigners criticise President Saied as polls close in Tunisia

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Leader of north African country expected to win second term after jailing opponents and changing constitution

Polls have closed in Tunisia’s presidential election as the president, Kais Saied, seeks a second term, while his most prominent critics are in prison and after his main rival was jailed suddenly last month.

Observers see the election, which Saied is expected to win, as a closing chapter in Tunisia’s experiment with democracy.

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Mpox vaccination begins in DRC after 859 die this year

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World Health Organization declared outbreak in central and east Africa a global emergency two months ago

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have begun vaccination against mpox, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread to several countries was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.

Some of the 265,000 doses donated to the DRC by the EU and the US were administered in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.

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Arab spring dreams in ruins as Tunisia goes to polls against backdrop of repression

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Critics of incumbent Kais Saied say he has increasingly bent the country’s institutions to his will

Tunisia will hold a presidential election on Sunday against the backdrop of a crackdown on dissent and human rights violations committed against undocumented migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

The incumbent, Kais Saied, whose most prominent critics are behind bars, is expected to sail to an easy win after a campaign with few rallies and public debates, marking a significant step back for a country that long prided itself as the birthplace of the Arab spring uprisings of 2011.

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Starmer defends UK ceding control of Chagos Islands amid Tory criticism

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PM says deal has secured future of US-UK military base as Conservative leadership hopefuls play blame game

Keir Starmer has defended giving up UK control of the Chagos Islands, as the decision has descended into a political blame game among Conservative leadership candidates.

The prime minister said the agreement with Mauritius over the islands would secure the long-term future of a joint US-UK military base on Diego Garcia, which he deemed as the “single most important thing”.

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